1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of recycling. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems, methods, and devices for collecting and processing recyclable waste byproducts through the formation of bales including the recyclable waste.
2. The Relevant Technology
As the consuming public demands increased convenience when shopping for products and services, retail and wholesale distribution centers are following the “super-center” trend and carrying not only greater quantities and varieties of products, but are also offering services which have previously required consumers to visit a separate store. With the increased quantity and variety of products and services, the amount of waste generated at such retail and wholesale centers has also increased. As a result, recycling is increasingly important to control the costs associated with this increased amount of waste.
By way of example, retail and wholesale centers are now common which merge the traditional department stores carrying clothing with a grocery store. As a result, customers can visit a single store to obtain most of the items the customer may need, whether it be groceries or clothing. Moreover, many of these stores offer an even greater one-stop-shopping experience by combining even more types of products and services into a single establishment.
For instance, a single store may now offer not only clothing and grocery items, but also furniture, electronics, office supplies, automobile parts, sporting goods, and the like. Some retail and wholesale distribution centers have expanded even further and provide auto servicing centers, business centers, beauty salons, restaurants and vending areas, photography studios, and the like all under the same roof.
Each type of product or service potentially brings with it various types of recyclable and non-recyclable waste which must be dealt with by the retail or wholesale center. For example, the use of plastic wrap and plastic film bags is increasingly permeating more and more aspects of retail sales as well as the shipping and packaging industry. For example, plastic shopping bags are well known to the general public as they are a predominant method for consumers to carry groceries and other purchased goods from a store. An even greater volume of plastic film, however, is generated for product packaging and distribution. For example, palates of goods are frequently wrapped with large sheets of shrink wrap plastic film to keep the contents of the pallet from shifting or falling during transit. Groceries may, for example, be loaded by a distributor onto the pallet and then wrapped with shrink wrap in this manner.
Another example is in clothing distribution in which each garment is typically transported wrapped in its own plastic sleeve and/or included with a plastic clothing hanger used by the retailer to store and display the item. Some estimates are that plastic bags on apparel can account for over sixty percent of plastic waste at retail department stores.
Restaurants and vending areas may also receive food items and food containers which are similarly packaged and wrapped in shrink wrap that must be disposed of by the store. In addition, recyclable products such as aluminum beverage cans or drink bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or another plastic may collect in such areas and, if not recycled, are also discarded by the store. Business centers and auto servicing centers similarly produce still other waste byproducts. For example, an auto servicing center may provide various servicing options such as oil changes and fluid exchange services. As a result, the auto servicing center may produce and discard large numbers of gallon bottles used to store window washing fluid or antifreeze/coolant or quart bottles used to store motor oil. In some cases, such bottles are made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) or another recyclable plastic. Business centers, in which consumers may make photocopies or access computers to print documents or images, may also produce large amounts of discarded paper and shredded paper. Such paper, coupled with the paper and shredded office paper produced by the store's managing office, is often a large quantity of recyclable waste.
With this vast amount of plastic and other recyclable waste byproducts used in the packaging and shipping industries, and in the everyday operations of a retail or wholesale distribution center, there is a need to recover this material out of the waste stream in an efficient and effective manner. Stores that aggressively collect and recycle waste byproducts separate from other garbage frequently save hundreds of dollars per month in the cost of trash hauling. Still, the storage, baling, shipping, and processing of plastic and other recyclable waste byproducts is extremely inefficient under current methods.
At stores and distribution centers, for example, one conventional method of collecting plastic waste film for recycling is to stuff the plastic into other large plastic bags and toss them somewhere in the facility in a haphazard fashion (e.g., on top of other bales or bins). For transportation, the bags are thrown into the back of a truck for transportation. Similar methods are often used for collecting other recyclable waste byproducts such as beverage containers, plastic bottles, shredded paper, and plastic hangers. These methods are, however, extremely inefficient uses of space.
Because of these challenges, much of otherwise recyclable waste is disposed of as garbage. Not only does this add to pollution and more quickly fill landfills, but the recyclable waste byproducts fill on-site trash receptacles very quickly. Because waste is typically paid for by volume, i.e. the number of waste containers hauled off, the large volume of recyclable waste that is disposed of in on-site trash receptacles represents a significant cost. In addition, such waste has a recycling value that is unrealized when the recyclable waste is disposed of as garbage.
Despite the challenges in collecting recyclable waste byproducts, uses for recycled waste are quickly expanding. For example, recycled plastic is now used in plastic garbage can liners, landfill liners, agricultural film, and composite lumber products for picnic tables, park benches, porches, and walkways where rot-resistant wood-like products are desired. Shipping containers, carpet materials, and hard plastic containers are also more and more frequently made with recycled plastics. This increased demand for products made from recycled materials is fueling an increased demand for the collection of recyclable plastic and other waste.
In addition, recent increases in the cost of raw petroleum have led to a dramatic increase in the cost of plastics for plastic products. As a result, the per pound value of collected recyclable plastic has also increased dramatically. This adds to the demand for the collection of recyclable plastic.
Nevertheless, the volume of plastic and other waste that is collected for recycling remains considerably lower than is feasible. One key limitation on the use of recyclable waste is that the waste is often difficult and costly to collect. For example, consumers using small plastic bags rarely return them to a source whereby they can be recycled. In addition, at department stores shrink wrap plastic, garment bags, plastic clothing hangers, plastic bottles, metal cans, and the like are often discarded rather than collected. In particular, at department stores and warehouse stores recyclable materials, such as shrink wrap plastic, garment bags, plastic clothing hangers, plastic bottles, metal cans, and the like, are often discarded because the volume of space required to store all the recyclable materials accumulated within the store becomes too expensive to dedicate to that purpose. Although there are feasible methods for collecting such waste products, such as dedicated compactors and balers for each type of waster product, these devices are too expensive and the volume of space that must be dedicated to storing pre-compacted recyclable waste is usually impractical for most businesses. For instance, the amount of plastic film or garment bags necessary to form an entire bale of only plastic may take weeks or months to accumulate. The same holds true for plastic bottles, metal cans, and the like
By analogy, efforts at recycling cardboard have been much more successful. Cardboard recycling is performed at retailers, for example, by using large cardboard balers to compact waste cardboard and form the waste cardboard into bales for storage and transportation to cardboard recycling facilities. Cardboard balers are generally not used for recycling other types of recyclable materials, however, because they are often too large for the volume of specific types recyclable materials that are dealt with. Cardboard balers are typically designed to form forty-eight inch tall bales. The amount of individual types of recyclable material, such as plastic film, plastic bottles, metal cans, and the like, it would take to form a forty-eight inch tall bale typically cannot be stored by most, if not all, retailers. As a result, unlike cardboard, for which there is an efficient recycling infrastructure, there is currently no effective method for collecting large volumes of other types of recyclable materials.
In addition, cardboard cannot be mixed with plastic or other recyclable waste products during recycling. This is because they are completely different materials that are recycled by very different chemical and mechanical processes. There are also no efficient methods to separate such waste byproducts from cardboard since the value of either material does not justify the labor. For this reason, it is well known that the presence of plastic film, for example, in a cardboard bale leads to rejection of the entire bale such that it is discarded rather than recycled.
Accordingly, it would represent an advance in the art to provide systems and methods to more efficiently and less expensively collect and process recyclable waste byproducts for use in downstream recycling processes.